PV Panels Integrated into Stone Rainscreen Facade

PV Panels can offer multiple benefits for architectural designs, in addition to the benefits that come from the self sufficiency of having your own power source.

Various types of PV panels are available from integrated thin films to monocrystalline, polycrystalline, amorphous and hybrid PV panels.

Properly engineered, the integration of the PV panels can be fairly seamless to the architecture of the bulding - yet allow it to be a defining element and Gestalt of what the building represents.

Using adjustable rainscreens attachment systems allow the facade to use multiple cladding elements, improve the thermal efficiency of the building, and integrate the wire housing of the PV elements in the same structural support element.

So the push to a zero carbon footprint for building enclosures is starting to become a reality with the introduction of such technologies.

Energy Efficiency In Buildings

At the 2008 summit in Hokkaido Japan, G-8 leaders called for a 50 percent global reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2050 to avoid “the most serious consequences of climate change.” Meeting this goal will require transforming the way energy is produced, delivered, and consumed across all sectors of the economy and regions of the world. The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that the building sector alone will need to reduce annual emissions by 8.2 gigatons below business-as-usual by 2050, an amount equal to nearly one third of global emissions today (IEA 2008a). (READ THE WHOLE STORY)